Colored cosmetic contact lenses blend, enhance, or mask the colored portion of the wearer's iris to change the visible color of the eye. Such lenses have become widely accepted fashion accessories, and are even worn by users who do not require prescription correction of their vision. In fact, such lenses may be used to add detail to clothing outfits and other fashions such as Halloween costumes.
Contact lenses recently have been manufactured with improved pattern and color integration that greatly enhances the realism of the resulting colored iris. For example, subtle color differences may be implemented in multiple, superimposed pattern layers on the lens. This gives the iris the illusion of depth of color and improved integration with the wearer's natural eye colors.
While improved technology has resulted in more realistic colors in lenses, there has been an increased demand for a wider variety of colored contact lenses to more accurately reflect the mood, personality or individual tastes of the wearer. This is reflected in the increased popularity of “Tattoo” styled lenses that include printed images on the iris portion. For example, some tattoo lenses have included an inscription such as the text “2000” annularly printed on the iris portion of a lens. Other such lenses have included even opaque iris portions that mask out a portion of the iris so that the pupil of the eye appears to have a vertical ellipsoid shape to suggest the iris of a cat.
Thus, users of prescription contact lenses—or colored-lens wearers who desire more unique and tailored fashion accessories—would benefit from the ability to easily customize cosmetic or corrective contact lenses to suit the individual's tastes. Furthermore, the ability to customize contact lenses may provide a wider market for potential colored contact lens wearers who are unsatisfied with the color options presently available.
Typically, a contact lens must fit the size and shape of the user's eye precisely in order for the lens to be safe to wear. Because of this, contact lenses are typically manufactured in a wide array of sizes and corrective prescriptions to accommodate a majority of wearers. For example, the main parameters for selecting a contact lens for a user includes the lens diameter, the base curve of the lens and the corrective prescription. The corrective prescription can include other parameters, such as the amount of corrective magnification to compensate for myopic or hyperopic vision, the degree of correction needed for astigmatism, the presence or absence of bifocal or trifocal areas, or vision-correcting tinting. Other options, as mentioned above, include iris colorization patterns or other forms of tinting for cosmetic use or convenience in handling. Consequently, the large number of permutations and combinations of these features requires a lens-care practitioner to keep a large inventory of lenses on hand. The least-used lens permutation combinations are likely to remain unused within this inventory.
Similarly, while a wide range of cosmetic color and pattern combinations are available in pre-made packages of contact lenses, the colors and patterns may not be ideally suited for a particular wearer. For example, the skin color, hair color, and iris color of a particular user may appear most cosmetically appealing when accentuated by colored contact lenses having a particular color shade. While multiple shades of colors are available in pre-made stock lenses, the user may be required to settle for a close match of the desired shade instead of an ideal shade if the ideal shade lies somewhere between available successive shade gradients. Moreover, corrective prescriptions such as corrective magnification are available only in stepped increments. For example, magnification is usually available in increments of + or −0.25 diopter. A patient requiring correction of −2.35 diopter would need to choose between the inexact correction of either a −2.25 and −2.50 diopter lens.
While the advent of the Internet and its many implemented software routines have greatly increased consumers' ability to purchase lenses from a wider variety of manufacturers, lens wearers' choices are still restricted by the limitations of pre-manufactured lenses.